DESTINATION DEVELOPMENT CONSULTING

The strategy, branding, and communications destinations need to compete.

Resonance is a growth partner for DMOs, tourism boards, and hospitality visionaries. We help them understand how their destination is perceived globally, and build the strategies that sharpen their reputation in order to attract the types of visitors they are looking for.

Grow with intelligence-led destination development.

Traveler expectations are evolving, and so is the way they find the places they choose to visit. Resonance helps destinations get chosen. Through data, intelligence, technology and communications, we enable destinations to define their vision, identify their customers, and convert them into long-term tourism success.

Resonance has completed destination development plans for cities and tourism organisations across the globe. We’ve unlocked transformative growth for today’s (and tomorrow’s) most beloved luxury hospitality brands, as well as some of the fastest-rising cities in the world.

Our approach marries intelligence and the combined expertise of our destination consultants and creatives, as well as the Place Power™ framework: our proprietary competitive benchmark for cities, regions and destinations.

It’s everything we need to set great places into motion, build stunning brands, and amplify the right communications so destinations get noticed — in search results, in press coverage, and in the AI-generated answers that shape travel and investment decisions today.

Our Destination
Development Capabilities

01

Destination Strategy & Tourism Master Planning

Get an intelligence-backed roadmap for visitor economy growth. Our analysts craft long-term visions that quantify competitive positioning and chart a confident course through market development, tourism strategy, and implementation.

Destination vision and positioning
Tourism and visitor economy master plan
Destination competitiveness assessment
Market segmentation and visitor persona development

02

Destination Branding & Marketing

There’s a story waiting in every destination. Resonance surfaces the compelling, competitive truth that sets yours apart. Then, we make it impossible to ignore, bringing destinations to life with story, design, experience, and targeted communications.

Destination brand strategy
Destination branding, logo, and visual identity
Media relations and earned media strategy

03

DMO Advisory & Organisational Strategy

We help destination management organisations build the strategic clarity, governance structure, and stakeholder alignment they need to lead their visitor economy effectively.

DMO strategic planning and organisational review
Funding and partnership development strategy
Performance measurement and benchmarking frameworks
Board and stakeholder alignment

Hotel & Resort
Development

Resonance has created brand strategies, names, and marketing platforms for leading hotel and resort developments since 2007, equipping industry visionaries and icons alike with two decades of proprietary intelligence.

Over that time, we’ve worked with the brands that define what luxury means today, including Aman, Four Seasons, Auberge Collection, Marriott Autograph, LXR, and Discovery Land Company.

Learn More

FAQS

Key questions and answers.

01

What is destination development?

Destination development is the process of defining, developing, and growing a place’s visitor economy. It unites tourism planning, destination branding, experience development, and marketing into a single, strategic practice that seeks to attract visitors, generate economic prosperity, and create community benefit.

In short: it’s how the destinations the world loves get made.

What sets destination development apart from traditional destination marketing is its breadth: it encompasses physical development, product creation, stakeholder alignment, and long-term stewardship. As a result, it tends to be quite forward-looking, with a longer time horizon and a distinct focus on the future of a destination.

See the daring identity we created Europe’s perfectly imperfect capital.

View Case Study

02

What is a tourism master plan?

A tourism master plan is a long-term strategic vision to make a destination attractive to visitors. These plans typically cover a 5–10 year horizon, and aim to answer the essential questions that power tourism success:

What are my priority markets?
What are my destinations’ strengths?
Which visitors should I be prioritizing?
Which tourism assets do I need to invest in?

An effective tourism master plan doesn’t just answer those questions. It also serves as a roadmap for everyone — developers, architects, governments, and the community — charting a clear path toward implementation and growth.

Resonance has completed more destination development plans for cities than any other firm in North America, and empowers ambitious regions, destinations, and hotels to move ahead with confidence.

Learn about our Olympic effort to grow tourism for Los Angeles.

View Case Study

03

What is a visitor economy strategy?

A visitor economy strategy is a plan to help a city or region maximise its visitor appeal and unlock the most economic, social, and cultural value from its tourism sector.

While some destination marketing plans focus primarily on visitor numbers, a visitor economy strategy tends to be more comprehensive, integrating tourism attraction, place development, business support, and community benefit into a coherent plan.

Resonance delivers visitor economy strategies for DMOs, city governments, and national tourism authorities globally.

The strategy, branding, and communications destinations need to compete.